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Monday, July 30, 2012

Having worked all my hours for the week by Thursday afternoon, I took
Friday to get my long run done for the week. On the schedule this
week, yet another 20 miler. This time the pace was marathon pace plus
30 seconds - 8:19 pace. I got up at the same time as Dave, 6:30am, and
was out the door by 7:30. I thought the heat wouldn't be bad yet but I
was wrong. I was barely a mile into my run and it was HOT and humid
already. I did a small loop of the neighborhood and headed home to drop
off the shirt and just run in a sports bra. I rarely do this, but
desperate times require desperate measures. :) A quick reply of
sunscreen and I was out the door again.

Because it took me forever (11-1/2 miles) in my last 18 miler to reach the pace, I decided to start out a little quicker in this run and hold on for dear life. Things actually went pretty well. I reached a sub-8:30 around 7.5 miles and by 11 miles I was already hanging out at a 8:24. Pace seemed to be going well today, but it was the heat, well more like the humidity, that was kicking my butt. By 10 miles into the run I could wring out my shorts. That was about the time the sun decided to come out and make everything even worse. I could feel the heat coming off the pavement and the breeze felt like a furnace fan. Around 13 miles in, I needed a break. I decided to take in more water and stop at each mile for a water break. I was really suffering in the heat. It felt like my insides were cooking. Despite all that, the pace was falling and I was hanging out right where I was supposed to be at a 8:19 with four miles to go. Here, I got tough and slogged through a few more miles. With one mile to go, I didn't think I could get any hotter. I stopped at the drinking fountain, filled both my water bottles (10 ounces each) and poured them directly over my head. It was refreshing for a moment and then it was time to get the last mile done.

Friday 7/20 - Rest day. Dave came home from his work trip today and I also got my parents dog for the next week. It was chaos, chaos, chaos in our household this day.

Saturday 7/21 - 18 mile long run (goal pace 8:19, actual pace 8:20). This was a pretty good run. I started a little later in the morning than I wanted and although it wasn't hot, it sure felt hot. I was melting. Regardless, it took me about 11-1/2 miles before I could get under a 8:30 average pace and knew I was going to have to work to get to an 8:19. And I did, which means my fitness and speed are on like Donkey Kong!

Total Weekly Miles - 32

With less than nine weeks to go until the marathon, I don't know if I'm burnt out or just have too much going on (you have no idea) but I don't have a whole lot of interest in running right now. There's a big part of me that does not want to do the marathon but I've already paid for it so I'll keep training. Next week I leave for London for 9 days (OMG! I'm going to the Olympics!!!), and I may not run at all for that time. I'll be walking a lot, though. Is this a mistake to not run while I'm there? I had to take that week or two off for my broken toe and found it a little difficult to get back to training. Should I take some running attire? What would you do?

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Per usual, yesterday afternoon when I got home from work I laid down for my afternoon nap. Sloopy, my dog, usually joins me but because it was thundering outside she was freaking out and wasn't in bed. So, I got up to go get her and when I did I noticed there was dog vomit on the bed beside me. And a lot of it (my dog is only 11 pounds - how did she have that much in her stomach?). As I'm stripping the bed apartment and dragging it into the laundry room, I see that she has thrown up in three more places in the living/dining room. Seriously Sloopy?

I find the dog and put her into her crate. While it looks like the vomiting started shortly after she had breakfast (I mean, it barely looked chewed), I didn't want to take my chances.

I start the water in the washing machine and beginning wrestling the comforter into it. Now, I swear I have washed it before, but king sized comforter versus regular size washing machine...well, you do the math. As I'm smashing it in there, I begin to hear water outside of the washing machine. OH MY GOD!!! I'm flipping every damn switch on the washing machine and couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, I turn it off, but of course it's too late and the entire floor of the laundry room now has standing water in it. Awesome. I went to the basement to get the mop and there was water dripping in from the laundry room into the basement. Double awesome.

And did I mention that I'm on my own this week? Dave is in San Francisco for work.

I called Dave in a panic. WHATDOIDO?? WHATDOIDO?? WHATDOIDO?? Being that he's 3000 miles across the country, he wasn't much help. I called my mom. I called my dad. I found every spare towel we had in the house and started mopping up the mess. My dad agreed to come over after work and help me move the washing machine so I could dry behind it and he also checked out the basement to make sure I hadn't done some damage.

I did get the comforter washed in the machine, but when I took it out, it still had crusty puke on it. At this point, I lost it. I was screaming like a mad woman and saying a few choice words. But, I got creative and washed that comforter in my bathtub like an Amish person. Rubbing it. Scrubbing it. Ringing it out as best I could. Three and a half hours later in the dryer, it was finally dry. Well, sort of dry. It was a little damp when I put it on the bed.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

This was the temperature in the middle of my workout and notice, it's after 7:00pm.

The workout looked like this:

1 mile warm up

2 X (6 X 400 at 1:31 pace) with 1:30 rest interval

2:30 rest interval in between sets

1 mile cool down

I started with the 1 mile warm up and was already sweating bullets. But, I love 400s so I thought, this ought not to be too bad. And for the first three it wasn't.

Interval 1 - 1:28

Interval 2 - 1:27

Interval 3 - 1:27

Starting with the fourth 400 I was beginning to lose it mentally. I was trying to focus but all I could think was "I'm gonna barf." The times were still good though.

Interval 4 - 1:27

Interval 5 - 1:28

Interval 6 - 1:29

Instead of the 2:30 rest break between sets, I took a full five minutes. I refilled my water bottle and took a bathroom break.

Interval 7 - 1:29

And the worst of the worst...my iPod died. NOOOO!!!! Guess I was sweating too much. Why can't Apple come up with a waterproof iPod shuffle since it's supposed to be used for exercise?

Interval 8 - 1:29

Interval 9 - 1:30

Interval 10 - 1:29

Interval 11 - 1:30

Interval 12 - 1:31

Then I threw up in my mouth. Ew! I know! But, god was it hot.

I finished out the workout with an easy mile cool down.

This was my favorite workout when I did the half marathon training plan and has so far, been my favorite workout for marathon training. I love 400s. They're tough but doable and short compared to everything else in marathon training.

It begs the question, though....if I can run 12 400s at roughly a 6:00 pace, how come I couldn't have run a 6:00 mile in the last race?

Monday, July 16, 2012

Wednesday - 3 miles in the hood with the husband. It was painful and slow.

Thursday - off

Friday - Tempo run. 1 mile warm up, 6 miles at long tempo pace (7:33), 1 mile cool down. I totally nailed this run with my middle six miles at 7:31. This is a very comfortable pace for me once I get going.

Saturday - One mile race.

Sunday - I was supposed to run 13 miles today at an 8:04ish pace, but my legs are just trashed. I am really struggling to recover from these workouts. My shin has been hurting, my calves are hard as rocks, and overall I'm just feeling really fatigued. But, my years and years of running has taught me that missing one workout doesn't make or break your race. There will be more runs and I'll start again on Monday.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

This weekend I ran a 1 mile race, the CRC Mile Dash Anniversary Bash. Yes, just one mile. It was hard; it hurt; it kinda sucked; and I'm so glad it was only one mile. There's not much to say about a one mile race but here's the race in a nutshell.

Although the temperatures are much improved over last weekend it was still hot and H.U.M.I.D. on Saturday and this race was at 5:00pm. I stupidly did not hydrate well and was thirsty going into the race. Dave and I did a short one mile warmup to the race start and added some fast pickups in there. For me, this was probably not enough warmup as, honest to goodness, it takes me at least four miles to feel comfortable in any run. But I was sweating really good and didn't want to do any more warmup.

The race was broken down into two waves: (1) men under 6:00 and women under 6:30 and (2) everyone else. So, this separated Dave and I. I would be in the first wave and he would be in the second. Looking at my wave, it was mostly men, and considering it was supposed to be under 6:00 for the men, I lined up behind them all and behind the high school girls. I thought that seemed smart. Turns out it wasn't. The gun went off and I took off like a bandit. Barely 200m into the race those high school girls were running six across and I couldn't get around them or through them. So I said, "coming right between you", touching two of them on their sides and squeezed between them. In my head I feel like I shoved them out of the way, but hopefully it wasn't. I felt bad the rest of the way. That's racing I guess. At the quarter mile mark I was at 1:24. Awesome. My goal was to go sub-6:00 if possible (6:02 is my PR on the same course) and I was right on track. I was feeling really thirsty by this point and was licking my lips a lot to try to get some saliva going. It wasn't working and I was just trying to stay focused. It's only 6 minutes, Meredith. At the half mile mark I was at 3:01. Geesh. Unlikely I'm going sub-6:00 at this point and I would have to go even to be able to at least match the PR. At the three quarter mile mark I was at 4:40. Come on legs! What the heck! Get moving! I did feel like I picked it up a little in the last quarter mile. In the end my final time was 6:13. It wasn't what I wanted; it wasn't what I think I am capable of; but who cares it was still fast for a 34 year old.

In the end I won my age group (out of three). This is my kind of race, though. It cost me $10 and there was no race packet, no t-shirt, no medals, no awards. Pure and simply running. And, they had cake at the end. Perfect.

Monday, July 09, 2012

So, this is actually my first 20 miler I've done for my marathon training, but it's actually the second 20 miler out of 5 (yes, FIVE!) for the plan. I didn't get to do the first one because it was exactly one week after I broke my toe. The original plan was to do this run this past Saturday but since it was THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR!!! and it was already 81 degrees at 5:00am, I thought I would postpone. Instead I got my tail to work yesterday (yes Sunday) put in a day's work and then took today off to do the run and get other stuff done that I wasn't able to do last week.

I started the run just before 8:00am. I think I waited too long to start the run. Although it wasn't super-hot, it was sunny and the sun was really beating down and making me hot. Right from the start my legs felt dead. They've felt dead now for over a week. Yet, I was easily into a sub-8:50 pace by mile 2. Because I was doing this run on a weekday, I was doing this run all alone. That also meant that I was carrying my own water and nutrition. In case you care, I take one gel every 4 miles starting at mile 4. I drink only water and I drink it every mile. I use a Nathan water belt which holds two, 10 oz. water bottles, so I have to refill my water bottles at least twice during a 20 miler. But enough about that crap...onto the run.

I started my run through the neighborhood so I could get in a little extra mileage instead of going 10 miles out and 10 miles back. Things started okay as I mentioned above. The legs felt dead but the pace was going well. I was hot but at least there was a breeze in my face on the way out. The course goes, basically, uphill for the way out and downhill for the way in. Now it's not hilly-hilly, but looking at a chart of it, you can see it's definitely uphill.

I kid you not, but 8 miles I had had enough of this run. This is usually my sweet spot of a run and I was already struggling. Oy! Nonetheless, I put one foot in front of the other and turned around at 10-1/2 miles. Usually I would throw myself some good pity parties when I'm feeling this beat up on a run, but instead I tried to use mantras to get myself back in gear, like "Just Run and Get It Done." And my new favorite, "Somebody's got to be the best, so why not me?"

Fifteen miles was my last water refill stop and this stop just about broke me. I knew I had 5 miles left but did I really need those last five miles? I mean, there were still three other 20 milers on the schedule, plus I had a really successful 18 miler last week. We could just throw this one away.

But I didn't. I literally told my legs, out loud, to shut up and on my way I went. It wasn't pretty and I was certainly doing the marathon shuffle (although the pace was holding steady), but I got it done.

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Last week could be perfectly be described as a hot mess. Not only was it HOT, what a mess that was created by the storm and subsequent lack of power, air conditioning, refrigerator, cable and internet. Finally, after 8 days and just over $400, we got our power back, had our air conditioning fixed, fixed our refrigerator ourselves, and got our cable and internet back lastly on Saturday night. Not to mention, we were able to get our days without cable and internet credited. Good job, Insight.

And along the way, there was a little bit of running.

Monday 7/2 - 5.5 miles track workout. This workout was a disaster. It was crazy hot (in the mid 90s) and I just couldn't get my head and legs to cooperate. Not only that, but Dave had his own workout and forgot his watch (we were staying at my parents with limited supplies), so I let him borrow mine and I would just do what felt right. The workout was:
1 mile warmup
2 X 1200
3 X 800
(2:00 rest between each)
1 mile cool down
Well, whatever. I did the second 1200 as 3 X 400. I did a lot of bitchin' and moanin'. It (and I) was a mess. Moving on...

Friday 7/6 - 3 miles easy on the treadmill
55 double leg crunches on the BOSU and 55 bicep curls with 10 lb. dumbbells. This was done as 10-9-8...etc. crunches and 1-2-3...bicep curls. This is a variation of a workout my friend Andrea gave me. I was sore in my biceps for DAYS!!!!

Saturday 7/7 - This was supposed to be the day of my 20 mile run, but when I woke up at 5:00am and it was already 81 degrees, I said no. Safety first. More on the 20 miler tomorrow.

Sunday 7/8 - 3 miles easy in the neighborhood. For some reason my calf was killing me and just would not loosen. I spent much of Sunday evening wrapped in a heating pad and even put some Ben Gay on it. If that doesn't say sexy, I don't know what does.

Saturday, July 07, 2012

Friday, July 06, 2012

Despite the craziness of this week, I decided to do a 5K on the Fourth of July. I had a tempo run on my schedule, so why not? Why not? Well that's an easy one. Because the temperature right now might be cooler on the face of the sun than it is in the Midwest. I don't know what the temperature was at 8:00am at the start of the race, but it was hot and sticky and liquid air. I did a short 15 minute warm up and I was already drenched in sweat.

The race was off and I was off with it. It was a loop course that went downhill first and then back uphill (as much uphill as you get in Central Ohio (none)) towards the finish. I took off pretty quickly just hoping to do okay. I quickly realized that this was going to suck. With this heat, lack of sleep, and the crap we've been dealt this week I just don't have any power in my legs. By the turnaround point in this race, I was fried. I wanted to walk, even. But, I kept my legs moving. Slowly, but I was moving. Did I mention I forgot my iPod too, which made this race even more miserable. Ugh!

Anyway, and unfortunately, I let two women go towards the end of the race. I just had nothing left to chase them. In the end, my time was okay for the conditions - 22:52, which is scarily the same pace I used for my last half marathon. But, according to Dave I was the 10th overall female. On crappy days, you've got to chase your competition and not the clock.

We stuck around for awards which were inevitably screwed up. My time wasn't even recorded. I guess, technically, I didn't even participate in this race. If that's the case, can I get my money back? According to the original results I finished second in my age group which netted me a $20 gift certificate to a local running store. They have since updated the results which now gets me third but still they don't have my time or name. Either way, I have the gift certificate and I'm gonna be keeping it, dang it!

There was a highlight to the day and that was meeting Miss Molly. We've seen each other at races before but this was our first time meeting. It's like I've known her for a very long time. We hit it off so well. We live only about 20 minutes apart so hopefully we can do some training together in the future.

Thursday, July 05, 2012

They say when it rains, it pours. This is a perfect way to describe the highs and many, many lows we've had during the last month and specifically this week.

I've kept it as no secret on this blog that I battle depression and anxiety. The pass several weeks have been a real test of my grit. I have to admit, I'm struggling. Today, I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. Here's some of what we've been faced with in the last couple of weeks...

With our highest of highs we booked our flights and reservations to London to see the Olympics. But never fail, as soon as you spend that much money, you are bound to get hit with unexpected expenses.

First, there was the broken toe. Although I have great insurance with my job, it doesn't cover 100% so I know there will be some big bills coming in considering there was a trip to the ER; I've had three different x-rays; and they gave me a boot/protective shoe to wear. I'm dreading getting these bills.

The very next week Dave had a dentist appointment and without fail had a cavity. He got a filling two days later. Ca-ching, ca-ching.

And then our car started making noises. Bad noises. Noises that resulted in a $500+ fix. Good god.

Also, we got some BIG news regarding Dave's job and it's going to be something BIG for us. We're not quite ready to announce this one publicly until we get more details, but let's just say it's BIG and has filled me with a lot of anxiety.

Things really fell apart last Friday with the storm. Our neighbor let us know on Tuesday that the power was back on. So around 9:00pm we headed home and at first, things seemed normal....except, our fridge wasn't cold. The fridge was on, the lights came on, but there was no cold air. We unplugged it for an hour and tried again. Nothing. This didn't really matter, though, as our food was still at my parents' house. Then we went to bed and I heard a strange noise when our air conditioner kicked on. The noise would come and go and didn't sound normal. I woke Dave up and made him listen. We went outside to our air conditioner and noticed that even though the fans were blowing inside, the air conditioner was not actually running. We turned off the air conditioner and decided to head back to mom and dad's at 12:15am. Looks like maybe we had a power surge and blew out our air conditioner and refrigerator. Awesome. So, last night we intended to spend the night again at my parents' house but at 11:00pm another strong storm blew through and they lost power. When the lose power, they don't have water (they have a well). We packed up again and headed home, again. Sure we didn't have air conditioning but at least we could shower and use the bathroom. It was a hot night and I slept in half hour spurts.

Today we've started making our calls to the insurance agent, the air conditioning people, the fridge people. I can only imagine what this is going to cost. And worse....they say they can't fix our air conditioning until tomorrow. Tomorrow's high is 101 degrees.

It's been a trying last couple of weeks and this past week has been my own personal hell. I know it's got to start looking up soon but it sure doesn't feel like it.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

As I mentioned in the previous post, I got up super early on Saturday morning and headed out for my long run, 18 miles, around 6:00am. The plan was always to get up this early. Frankly, I started a little later than I wanted, but my stomach was not in agreement with me and required a little more attention than I had planned for the morning. Anyway, Dave also got up to accompany me on the bike. As we headed out I mentioned how hot and humid it was and Dave said, "Really? I'm actually a little cold." Not fair.

The plan was 18 miles at marathon pace plus 45 seconds per mile ...carry the one....that's an 8:32 pace. I put my Garmin to average pace for the full 18 miles and had it set to between an 8:25-8:40 pace. Per normal, I started slow and worked my way into this pace. No kidding, it took me a full 8 miles to get the average down to an 8:40.

Like I said, it was hot. HOTTTTTT!!!! Saturday's high was supposed to be in the mid-90s and the humidity was full-on. Even at 6:00am I was already miserable. When I reached 9 mile and was ready for the turn around, I actually said to Dave, "where's the breeze". No lie, the winds immediately picked up and the sky got dark. I continued on for the next mile. Then there was a flash of lightning, a rumble of thunder, and I quickly picked up the pace. I saw what the storm did on Friday, there was no way I was going to be stuck out in that kind of storm. Luckily, the only structure in sight was a local surgical hospital and also luckily it had power (no kidding, it may have been the only building in New Albany with power). Neither Dave nor I had our phones with us so we asked the security guard if he could look up the radar for us. Of course, with the storms, they had no networks but he was somehow able to pull it up on his phone. Yep, a big blob of red over Central Ohio. Awesome.

As it turned out, it wasn't that bad and within 15 minutes we were back running again. And I kinda felt like I had gotten a second wind. My times had now dropped to an 8:29 average and I was feeling great. I caught up to a group of guys who were training for a different marathon and we spent about a mile running together until we went different directions.

All in all, it was a great run. The toe is a little tender but I'm not in any pain. I'm feeling pretty good about marathon training and am glad I'm back running so quickly.

Monday, July 02, 2012

(If you know the reference in the title, you and I were destined to be friends.)

Friday night I was working at my computer when I noticed the sky was getting dark and the wind was picking up. I closed up and went downstairs to turn on the TV. That's when I noticed the trees were bending in half and I heard our recycling bin rolling down the street. I ran outside to retrieve it and just about got blown over myself. Holy wow! This was a big storm. Right at 6:00pm, I turned on the news to see how bad of a storm it was and BAM! our electricity went out. I tried to turn on I Heart Radio on my phone and had no network. Dave was still at work. Sloopy (my dog) and I just sat and waited to hear the emergency sirens. There were some HUGE cracks of thunder and lightning. Somewhere between 6:30 and 6:45 Dave called and said Hamilton Road was closed and that he would have to take a different route to get home. By 7:00pm he was home and we still had no power.

We had dinner at my parents' house and headed home after that. On our drive home we noticed NO ONE had power as we got closer and closer to home. And we, of course, didn't have power either. I didn't sleep very well that night as the temperature rose in the house and our smoke detector beeped all night. I finally got up around 4:30am in a panic because (a) we still didn't have power and (b) our photo booth for Saturday's wedding was across the street in our storage facility behind an ELECTRONIC GATE!!! With nothing I could do until the office would be open I headed out on my long run just before 6:00am.

(More on the long run in the next post.)

We returned around 9:00am and I called the storage facility to no avail. Luckily, it's a chain and I was able to call a different one in town and was able to get information. Without even showering, Dave and I hopped on our bikes and rode over to the location. And what we saw on our way there was like nothing I had ever seen before. It looked like an apocalyptic movie:

Yep, that's less than a quarter mile from our house. Supposedly the wind took down 12-15 electrical poles and trapped 20-25 cars underneath all those wires. One car was smashed by one of the poles and severed a man's foot. Those people were trapped in their cars for upwards of 5 hours. Saturday morning the cars were gone, but a lot of damage remained. We were not getting power any time soon.

So, we packed up a few things, including as many refrigerated and freezer items as we could, and headed to mom and dad's for the day. We were fortune enough to be able to get our photo booth and the venue where we were working had power. We spent the night at my parents' house Saturday night. We were also able to hear from our electric company that the estimate for getting our power back would be NEXT Saturday, July 7th. Holy wow!

Sunday morning we headed back to our neighborhood to drop off the photo booth and obviously, still did not have power. Our poor neighbors who had nowhere to go! We checked out the damage again and although it looked better, there was still a long way to go:

We were able to talk to a cameraman for the local TV station, who just happened to have worked for the power company in a previous career. He said that this was really a three week job but that they were bringing in resources from other states. Wow! Honestly I'll be surprised if we get power by next weekend. For now we're staying at my parents' house and making the best of what we've got.